Ryan Girdusky clashed with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night.
CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month.
Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, on “CNN Newsnight” with host Abby Phillip.
The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday and continue to make headlines two days later.
As the debate turned fractious, Girdusky and Hasan sparred over whether the latter had been labeled an anti-Semite. “I’m a supporter of the Palestinians, I’m used to it,” Hasan said.
Girdusky replied: “Well I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
I’m still flabbergasted that there hasn’t been more of an international outrage concerning those pagers.
The use of mines as an indiscriminate weapon are already frowned upon,
And here they are using them, scattered throughout a civilian population with absolutely no regard to who could be standing next to their target.
Un-fucking believable.
Half of the people those pagers killed were children and health workers.
Wait… what?
I’m I reading that right?
12 people killed. 6 of which were 2 children and 4 healthcare workers.
But 2,800 wounded? So all of that wasn’t even about neutralizing targets, but maiming?
How many were set off? I have a hard time believing a 12killed : 2800wounded ratio…
EDIT: Google says bout 5000 pagers
CNN: reports 37killked but 3,000 wounded.
They bombed dozens of hospitals and orphanages across two countries and also started a starvation siege since that time.
There is no outrage left
This really hit me. As in maybe it explains some things since the internet was created. It’s indeed so hard to keep up.
I know it’s different, but that reminds me of the Gish gallop.
Oh no… Israel is doing the Gish gallop but for human rights atrocities… this explains it perfectly.
Yup with both parties supporting it. Such a grand time.
It was a terrorist attack. We must condemn all terrorist attacks
At this point it’d probably be less work to praise them when (if?) they don’t commit any…
Every day Israel doesn’t commit an atrocity, they get a cookie.
Fortunately, I like cookies, cause it looks like I’m going to be hanging onto them for a while.
Don’t eat them all yourself though.
Otherwise Israel would have no incentive to stop.
There hasn’t been outrage because blowing up people with pagers is actually the most targeted thing Israel has done in the past year. Certainly a step up from killing hundreds of refugees to maybe take out one hamas guy.
They killed children in that pager attack. Which I guess is part for the course, so ya, nevermind, you might be right.
Accused hamas guy
Which pager strike in particular do you disagree with? AFAIK the targets were pretty open about their relations to Hamas and Iranian funded extranational militants.
IMO we should have just stopped giving Israel shells and rockets a long time ago and instead given them a very small amount of spec ops equipment like the pagers.
Yes. The 9 year old girl was TOTALLY a Hezbollah militant.
Get real. Most of the people killed were civilian government workers and members of their families.
It would be like giving congress exploding pens. Yes, many of the members are deplorable. But handing them mini explosives is an act of terrorism.
Ah thats fair, I was unaware of the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday September 12 and 13th.
I had only heard about the earlier strikes.
I’m not commenting on the pager attack when I refer to “accused hamas guy” but I’ll leave it as an exercise to you to figure out why and how the pager strike might have led (and did lead) to civilian casualties.
Yes more precise than “was in a WhatsApp group with the cousin of a suspected Hamas member so the AI told us to bomb him at home with his children” but if that’s the bar…
You replied to a comment about blowing up a hamas guy with pager by saying the hamas guy is only an accused hamas guy, but you were not referring to the blowing up of a hamas guy with a pager?
Read the second sentence in that comment slowly
well we know who could be standing next to their target- another brown person in a majority muslim country. IE, nobody western supremacist racist pigs give a fuck about which is why there was no punishment and there will be no punishment against israel for any single thing they do. if it were gonna happen it would have by now. it’s not as tho once they get to that 300,000th dead palestinian suddenly the “rules based order” is gonna enact some of those “consequences for breaking the rules” on israel. not gonna happen. someone needs to dylan crooks netanyahu.
The conflict is not one based on racism, it’s literally based on religion and at least 3 groups of people in a small area using their religion to justify the murder of others. Full stop. Jews are not white. Jews who were expelled from Israel and became Europeanized are essentially genetically identical to the Jews that remained. Skin color is not race, but making this conflict about race makes that individual racist
There has been minimal pushback to the Israeli apartheid regime and decades long genocide in Palestine. You think a few more deaths are going to inspire real international action?
Not mines, IEDs. It was an indiscriminate terrorist attack on a civilian population using improvised explosive devices.
You’re describing what the Palestinians did to Israel on 10/7, and have continued doing this entire time, when they launch rockets at Israeli population centers.
This is a genocide on an incarcerated population, within an Apartheid State, founded on Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic Cleansing is fundamental to Zionism
Settlements and Occupation
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
Apartheid Evidence
Amnesty Report
Human Rights Watch Report
B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Peace Process and Solution
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Historian Works on the History
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
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Why does one side have population centers and the other human shields? It’s wrong regardless.
One side at least wants to pretend to have military targets?
You know that is actually insightful to the PTSD that many IDF soldiers are experiencing.
I’m sure the IDF soldiers feel very bad about all the women and children that they’ve driven bulldozers over.
I didn’t realize that HAMAS was as large an organization as the Israeli government and armed forces.
We’re also talking about a completely different country from Palestine that had nothing to do with any part of any of these conflicts, and even then, an indiscriminate terrorist attack on Palestinian civilians wouldn’t be justified by HAMAS’s terrorism. That’s like saying that the US bombings on Iraqi civilians are justified by Al Qaeda’s attack on the WTC on 9/11.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for a year now. It’s hard to claim they have nothing to do with any part of these conflicts
Hezbollah only exists because of Occupations and invasions by Israel
1982
Israeli Withdrawal
2006
2007 - Present
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/17/beyond-hezbollah-the-history-of-tensions-between-lebanon-and-israel
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli–Lebanese_conflict
It was created and grew popular to make Israel withdraw, but today it mainly exists to make sure Iran’s interests in Lebanon are ‘defended’.
No, it’s still due to resistance against Israeli Occupations and defense against Israeli Invasion, which they did again, after bombing the Capital along with many other cities, killing thousands of civilians.
Yeah, after Hezbollah attacked them they’re back. Good thing the Lebanese have Hezbollah to defend them from this cycle
They were firing rockets into the Shebaa farms, which Israel acknowledged is not part of Israel. Israel started doing airstrikes into Lebanon and then Hizbullah retaliated.
And yet, that still doesn’t justify killing civilians randomly.
And Israel has been running a military campaign to exterminate Palestine since the 1950s. It’s hard to claim their hands are clean in any of these conflicts.
I still remember when they were offering Israeli citizenship with the purchase of former Palestinian homes to American Jews in the 2000s.
Claiming they were justified in attacking israel is very different from claiming they have nothing to do with the conflict though. If you feel that firing rockets at israeli civilians is fine and good, say that instead of pretending hezbollah was uninvolved
That’s also bad. Both of the sides are bad, and the Palestinian civilians are caught in the crossfire.
Say what you want about Americans, we have yet to respond to a terror attack with fucking genocide.
Indiscriminate it was not. It was hyper targeted at everyone in the command chain that got a beeper. It’s not as if they sold them through normal stores to the general population.
It was indiscriminate and it was mass terrorism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions
A supply chain of a terrorist organisations was infiltrated and they where sold devices fitted with explosives and then distributed it within their organisation.
Everyone with a pager (and later also other devices) fell within the Hezbollah hierachy. The fact Hezbollah has infiltrated every level of society and has Docters and many others in their ranks does not make them invalid targets.
Besides, judging from the videos, we saw people standing next to whoever had the pager where mostly fine. The children dieing is horrible.
So calling it indiscriminate is more than a stretch. And the collateral damage is wayyyyy lower than with the rest of how Israël behaves.
Israel has never stopped ethnic cleansing of native populations
Hezbollah exists out of resistance to Occupation and Invasion by Israel
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/09/lebanon-establish-international-investigation-into-deadly-attacks-using-exploding-portable-devices/
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un
Just because Israel routinely violates international humanitarian law and targets civilians doesn’t make this any less of a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime
The settler colonial project of Israel is filled with rabid fascists, I agree whole heartedly. The current government of Israel is peak of that performance.
But trying to paint this as a boobytrap, and targeting civilians. I don’t think anyone buys that for a minute.
And this was hardly indiscriminate. It was pagers that where handed directly to Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah through their network. It’s not as if these where sold by shops in Lebanon to normal Lebanese.
And collateral sucks, but this still had less than the bomb that was dropped on the appartment complex with the command bunker under it filled with Hezbollah staff.
Well, human rights organizations and international law disagree, and I agree with them. Both those articles discuss that in detail, including how it was a booby trap and indiscriminate.
Nor is Hezbollah solely an armed resistance militant group. They are also a prominent political group and maintain a multitude of social services like hospitals, those people are civilians not militants. This did not solely target militants, in fact is mostly didn’t.
That’s fair!
I think International law does not disagree, it might be something that can be litigated. The pagers where specifically for hezbollah members, not civilians. I’ll expect “boobytraps and civilians” to be a losing argument, time will tell.
And, a terrorist organisation that takes over a region, intertwines itself with civil society to get legitimacy while at the same time sabotaging the countries government with threats of terror… is still a terrorist organisation. And anyone working for them a terrorist. I.e. Someone doing the bookkeeping for a terrorist group is still a terrorist.
Hezbollah started in direct resistance to Israeli occupation of Lebanon, I wonder what would have happened if they had not continued Post occupation or at least not shot at Israel and allowed for the Lebanese government to try and work with Israël on a peaceful border and other things that stood between the countries and their peoples.
They literally set off bombs in grocery stores and doctors offices. They killed a kid.
Right, because pagers blowing up in public is not indiscriminate.
Not improvised, and not on the civilian population, but you’re correct about the rest lol
Not on the civilian population, other than pagers blowing up in public?
You can see footage of some Hezbobros blowing up in the middle of a supermarket, with the people standing around them being unharmed. They were intended to maim the user of the device, the explosives were too small to cause much more. Sure, there are a handful of civilians hurt or even killed but this is was a lot ‘cleaner’ than throwing bombs from planes or Hezbollah’s own preferred method of firing rockets over the border.
As per Wikipedia, Hezbollah has to kill one civilian for every 2 soldiers. With the pager attacks, Israel hit 2750 Hezbobros and ‘only’ killed 2 kids.
I’ll take warfare tactics you don’t expect from first world nations for $1000, Alex.
Do you think it’d be more humane if they used larger explosives?
I think being designed to maim is but one of multiple problems with this approach, which would overall not be served by more explosives.
It looks like a pager. Yes, supply chain attack blah blah only purchased by Hezbollah folks. But if it gets stolen or found by a civilian, there is nothing about it to suggest it could be lethal or that they should leave it alone. It isn’t just not marked as lethal, it’s explicitly disguised as something mundane.
Hezbollah folks could be sitting next to an innocent civilian in any number of contexts.
Related to but distinct from my first point, there is an endless list of possible ways that a pager belonging to a hezbollah operative could wind up in the hands of an innocent, or in a position to harm an innocent instead of the target, and none of them are things that could be controlled or monitored for the fleet of explosive pagers. Once sold, there was literally no way to have any idea who would actually be harmed when the triggering page was sent.
Just call it terrorism perpetrated by a state actor, and we have no argument.
All of your problems are just one and the same: statistical probability of civilian casualties. And the nice thing with discussing the ethics of the choice to do it here is that we have the exact results. Around 2750 Hezbros hit with around 10 civilian deaths.
When they destroyed ISIS in Mosul 8 years ago, they turned that dial up all the way to a 1-on-1 ratio. 10.000 innocents for 10.000 Isibro’s.
When they destroyed them in Raqqa, they went even higher, to around 1.5.
And if it makes you happy to call it ‘terrorism’ when you see civilian casualties, go ahead.
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What’s even crazier for me to wrap my head around is those pagers were a safer method for civilians than what they’ve been doing. They’re indiscriminately leveling city blocks killing thousands of innocents.
Yeah no, the exploding pagers and radios, which were from an intercepted supply specifically for Hezbollah, was far more targeted than anyone could reasonably ask for.
Like yes, Israel’s overall actions in Gaza and Lebanon have been horribly ruthless and against civilian well-being. And there is the broader context of Palestine. But this is what you’re outraged by?
If everything between bombing Hezbollah and targeted attacks like the pagers/radio are off the table, like what would you actually do if a non-governmental military was indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets into your cities for an entire year? Seriously, how would you actually respond if you were in the leadership position?
No dude, it’s pretty reasonable for me to ask that they don’t kill children with IEDs.
Serious question, would you condone assassinating Putin with an IED even if several children were killed? Would it be better if they used a missile strike with 5x the civilian casualties because at least it isn’t an IED? Would it be better to do nothing and allow an opposing military force to continue bombarding your cities and your children with rockets and missiles?
I abhore the mass bombings and utter destruction Israel has wrought over the last year. It is beyond the pale. I would genuinely have prefered it if they could’ve taken out all of Hamas by blowing up cell phones in their pockets instead.
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There’s no risk of Putin being at a random grocery store or hospital so your hypothetical doesn’t tea make sense.
That doesn’t answer the question. Let me rephrase to be more direct.
What do you believe makes for acceptable and unacceptable civilian casualties (e.g. children) in urban warfare and what principles do you draw on to form these beliefs? Please use an example from a side you feel are “the good guys”.
If you’re a pacifist or believe not a single civilian casualty is acceptable, what would your approach be to resolving a conflict where your civilian population is being attacked with rockets/missiles?
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According to international law it’s acceptable when you’re being occupied, as is the case with Palestine. Not saying I agree, but the law makes a big distinction for those under apartheid.
I mean it was wrong when the US bombed weddings in the middle east and was a bad look. Don’t even need hypotheticals.
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Idk dude, generally things like booby traps are considered illegal in part because they’re not selective. Like if someone breaks in and you kill them with a gun it’s self defense, but if it’s a booby trap then we view it differently. Disguising bombs as typical civilian items seems pretty messed up.
Did you forget that
every “responsible” western power(Edit: Ottawa treaty) the US and Ukraine (who was a signatory of the Ottawa treaty) also has an arsenal of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines which are specifically meant to be hidden and disguised? Quite literally booby traps with long-lasting risks for civilian lives. Many children have lost their lives due to mines, yet they are still deemed acceptable in war.Anything that risks civilian lives is pretty messed up. But even compared to the mines being used in Ukraine, the pagers/radios were far more targeted and posed less risk to civilians.
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This is not true.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
Oh snap, that’s awesome! I wasn’t aware of this. I assumed NATO would be consistent with the US on mines. Thank you for sharing this.
I’ll modify my argument to “Even the US and Ukraine use mines”
It’s interesting though, according to my research the distinction between mines and weapons lie in how it’s activated. For example, the C19 ex-Claymore is now remote detonation only to comply with the Ottawa treaty because it can only be activated remotely and cannot be used with an indiscriminate activator like a tripwire. Therefore it is a weapon. With this les, the pagers/radios are more akin to weapons rather than mines.
So booby traps are allowed, as long as someone is there to decide when to press the button, which the Israelies clearly did.
No, I didn’t forget. Someone even mentioned them in this same comment chain.
Okay, so let’s go with your position that attacking soldiers with explosive weapons in civilian areas are not justifiable.
Based on your beliefs, what do you see as a justifiable response to Hezbollah’s year long barrage of rockets and missiles into Israeli cities. Keep in mind Hezbollah by and large conducts these strikes directly embedded in or right beside civilian sites. And they also store weapons in civilian sites.
The goal now is not to say which is worse, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The goal is to understand how you think about conflict and the principles you believe in that shape your views.
This was never a debate, I was just saying that I feel like disguising bombs as everyday, civilian objects is bad. The comment where I even posted that I literally began with “idk dude” to make it clear I wasn’t trying to engage in debate about this topic. The only reason I even replied again was because land mines were mentioned in the context of “did you forget” when literally above in this comment chain land mines were already mentioned.
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Pretty clear from the footage and lack of civilian casualties that the collateral risk was very low though